The floods in China are a global disaster

July 27, 2020

CEO/Founder

You may not know it if you watch CNN or Fox News, but China is experiencing its worst flooding in over 100 years, and certainly the worst flooding it has experienced in the modern era since the construction of the Three Gorges Dam.

Background

The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest Hydro-electric power station, completed along the Yangtze River basin in 2006, with additional power station construction and spillway added in 2012. The reservoir it creates is more than 410 miles long, and effectively creates the largest man-made reservoir in the history of the world. The Three Gorges Dam system includes the Dam itself, with its reservoir, power plant and boat locks, and then a series of upstream and downstream levees and dams that collectively make up the drainage and additional power generation plants for other towns and cities along the path of the Yangtze. Importantly, the drainage system downstream of the Three Gorges Dam includes both Wuhan and Shanghai, China.

At the time of its Construction, numerous engineers both in China and from around the world expressed concerns that since the focus of the 3 Gorges Dam project was power generation, insufficient attention was being paid toward flood control. The Yangtze is among the largest rivers in the world both by length and by volume, with only the Amazon River and Nile River producing greater volume of flow. The Yangtze and it's tributary system is also among the most flood-prone regions in the world, with historic floods that killed millions of Chinese. In 1931, a 4-month long flood disaster killed 3.7 Million people and displaced another 14 Million. Again in 1935, floods killed 137,000 people and destroyed entire cities, including Wuhan, China. Again in 1952, the Yangtze basin flooded along the Hubei province where Wuhan is located and killed another 33,000 from flooding plus another estimated 400,000 who later died of a plague (likely Swine Flu) that ravaged through after the floodwaters had receded.

Since the completion of the 3 Gorges Dam, the drainage basin of the Yangtze is also one of the largest food and grain production corridors in the world. Fully 20% of the world's supply of Corn, Maze and many fruits and vegetables are grown in the Yangtze flood basin. China is also the world's largest producer of Rice, Wheat, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Peanuts, Tea, Millet, Barley, Cotton, Corn and Soybeans...with the bulk of these food crops grown in the Yangtze flood basin.

It is also the region of China where they ranch for Hogs, Beef, and, importantly Chicken. More than 30% of the world's supply of Chicken and Eggs are farmed in the drainage basin of the Yangtze River, all of this downstream from the 3 Gorges Dam.

Floods

2020 has proven to be one of the worst Asian Monsoon seasons in history. Rain totals are more than 200% above the past 11 year average in China, but they are not alone, with additional massive flooding striking Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia and both North and South Korea. But while there have been deaths and dislocations in many places, none are as impacted as the 3 Gorges Dam region of China.

The reservoir system that makes up the 3 Gorges Dam system passed flood stage some 6 weeks ago, and is now classified by China as a Level 2 (Level 1 being the worst and only reachable in the event the Dam's discharge system fails).
China has had to destroy more than 2 dozen smaller dams and levees to let floodwaters into the drainage basin - namely, into the farmland, so as to attempt to spare cities downstream from catastrophic flooding.
Official numbers out of China are difficult to come by, but estimates from the Taiwanese press indicate that as much as 50% of agriculturally developed lands along the Yangtze have endured some form of flooding in 2020. Millions of acres of agricultural land now sit under as much as 9 feet of floodwaters and will produce zero yield in 2020 and perhaps beyond.
The 3 Gorges Dam itself is also in trouble. It had previously shown signs of 'Settling' and 'Buckling' that the Chinese Government had tried to dismiss as distortions in satellite images due to pixelation, but more recent photos also show further buckling in the key spillway section of the Dam, which is under the greatest pressure now as flood channels are kept wide open to prevent the Dam from being overstepped by floodwaters. Structural Engineers from the King's College in London recently issued a dire warning to the UN that they believe the Dam is on the verge of a catastrophic collapse that could place millions of lives at risk downstream.

Why This Could Be a Global Disaster

First is food security. China is not only the world's largest consumer of food (recall they have a population that is four-times greater than the US), but also the world's largest producer and supplier of food in terms of total output. And the primary food growing region of China is the Yangtze River basin and floodplain. We don't yet know the full extent of the damage to the global food supply from these floods, it's still an ongoing disaster where the focus is currently on saving human lives. But certainly, from the images, we have seen coming out of China, millions of acres of productive food-growing land has been rendered useless for the time being. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of livestock have been killed, including Hogs, Cattle, and Chickens. And hundreds of Warehouse buildings and silos that stored previously grown foods are also destroyed or inundated with water.

Secondly, this disaster comes directly on the heels of and in the same region as the COVID-19 Pandemic. The floodwaters that have now displaced hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of Chinese flow directly through the Hubei Province that was the site of the initial outbreak, including Wuhan City itself. Social distancing will now be impossible for the foreseeable future, and the risk of co-infections of other plagues like influenza are very real. And COVID-19 doesn't care about borders or humanitarian efforts. Any outbreak anywhere is a threat to everywhere else because of how easily the virus can be transmitted. But it is especially dangerous for a major outbreak to occur in China, because the world simply cannot trust the CCP to be forthright about what's happening so as to prevent the spread to other countries.

Third, if the 3 Gorges Dam does collapse, it threatens to kill millions of Chinese people downstream. More than 300 million people live downstream of the Yangtze Reservoir. A catastrophic collapse of the dam, however horrible to consider, may well create the worst humanitarian disaster in world history, one that could completely remake the world economy and geopolitical map for generations to come.

And finally, it's key to note that the Asian Floods of 2020 are not localized to China alone. The existence of the 3 Gorges Dam may indeed make this the greatest risk area, but millions of additional acres of food production is also now offline in more than a dozen countries, and COVID-19 related health-safety measures are necessarily being abandon in the very real fight for basic human survival. It may be some months before we know the full extent of crop and animal production losses, but global food supplies are taking a major loss as we speak...and China's weather service just forecast another 10-12 inches of rain by Sunday this week.

What Should Americans Do?

First, please stay informed. There is so much coverage of COVID-19 here in the US, of Donald Trump, of Black Lives Matter, it can become easy to get lost in the cacophony. Find a news service that is providing good International coverage and do the work to keep yourself and your family informed.

Second, if you have the means (and MOST of us do) consider planting a small garden, even if you have to user planter boxes in a window ledge or UV lighting in a spare bedroom. If you can't physically plant a garden, be sure to do what you can to prepare for food security, with long-term and healthy food supplies. At least some extra canned goods, if not more professionally prepared long-term food storage, freeze-dried foods and meat that you store properly.

Finally, if I may be so bold to suggest that we all take a moment to pray. To thank our God for the blessing that we live here, in America, and to pray for the well-being and comfort to those being so dramatically impacted by the twin disasters now in China...the Natural Disaster that is a once per century Monsoon season, and the manmade disaster that is the Chinese Communist Party and its corruption that magnifies the natural disaster there into what threatens to become a global catastrophe.

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Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

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The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

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The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

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The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.